Tree farming

[Buffalo_Wings_Master]

There are a variety of mods that allow for automated farming, and from one of my previous threads, I found out that a fair number of people rely on tree farms for power (it was the 3rd most popular option).
Currently, my setup involves a 10x10 MFR oak tree farm (using a single planter and harvester), 4 TE furnaces to smelt the logs into charcoal, three 3x3x3 LP boilers (NOT including the base layer of fuelboxes) which feed steam into 18 steam dynamos.

1) I'm looking for feedback on said system, in terms of resource efficiency and power output (SPACE is not a factor for this build) in general, but also:
2) LP boilers VS HP boilers
3) Planting + harvesting method (apart from MFR)
4) Power gen -> setups that are different from mine? ***setups that use tree farms as a power source***
*NOTE: feel free to post pictures of your setups if you wish

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[rhn]

There are a variety of mods that allow for automated farming, and from one of my previous threads, I found out that a fair number of people rely on tree farms for power (it was the 3rd most popular option).
Currently, my setup involves a 10x10 MFR oak tree farm (using a single planter and harvester), 4 TE furnaces to smelt the logs into charcoal, three 3x3x3 LP boilers (NOT including the base layer of fuelboxes) which feed steam into 18 steam dynamos.

1) I'm looking for feedback on said system, in terms of resource efficiency and power output (SPACE is not a factor for this build) in general, but also:
2) LP boilers VS HP boilers
3) Planting + harvesting method (apart from MFR)
4) Power gen -> setups that are different from mine? ***setups that use tree farms as a power source***
*NOTE: feel free to post pictures of your setups if you wish

Thanks for the feedback!

If you have Big Reactors you can considder using its Turbine multiblock to transform steam into RF. It is MUCH more efficient than dynamos. This can help you dimension your turbine after the boilers you have:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...TUxOUGxMRlpERWtPMmtGT213bmc&usp=sharing#gid=1

HP vs. LP have kinda changed over the years, so slightly lost track. But I believe the only difference is that HP produces 2x the steam per block, but will take twice as long to heat up.
I can see that you are not using maxed size boilers, yet you are using multiple boilers? Is there a reason? Boilers become more efficient with increasing size, but takes longer to heat up. So you spend a bigger initial fuel cost on heating it up, but once running it costs less.

If all you want is make charcoal, and you dont mind it being slightly OP, you could go to the nether and grab some Ghostwood trees. Plant them on Netherrack on a small'ish MFR farm(it REALLY dont need to be very large, a 5x5 is plenty) and just watch it come in. They grow rather fast and to a rather large size. Good alternative if you do not want to bother with tree breeding.

 

[asb3pe]

In my experience, the MFR Planter/Harverster combo provides more wood than could possibly be used by any method. I was using an emerald upgrade (that's a 25x25 area) and just put glowstone where needed to keep the light levels up for the saplings, losing a few spots but that's still about 600 saplings in the ground. I have over a million oak wood in storage just from a few weeks of running it 24/7 (I play on a server). It was so big, I downsized it by half. LOL

It really comes down to personal preference. What do YOU want YOUR base to look like? It's really not about efficiency, unless that's what drives you. I've never done the treefarm-charcoal-steamboiler power setup tho, so I don't have any specific suggestions for you. We have so many options in modded Minecraft, you can do a tree farm for steam but then pipe the steam into max-sized 16x9x9 BigReactor turbines as rhn said and really multiply your power output - almost 25K RF/t from one of them at optimal RPM. And the fuel is completely free, just some dirt and some saplings and some sunshine!

 

[rhn]

In my experience, the MFR Planter/Harverster combo provides more wood than could possibly be used by any method. I was using an emerald upgrade (that's a 25x25 area) and just put glowstone where needed to keep the light levels up for the saplings, losing a few spots but that's still about 600 saplings in the ground. I have over a million oak wood in storage just from a few weeks of running it 24/7 (I play on a server). It was so big, I downsized it by half. LOL

I would strongly suggest running multiple smaller MFR harvesters instead one a single one that large. The Harvesters scanning function becomes rather too slow to keep up with such a large area. Specially if you boost your saplings growth with things like Fertilized Dirt(Random Things), Lilypad of Fertility(Xenos), MFR Fertilizer etc.

 

[asb3pe]

I would strongly suggest running multiple smaller MFR harvesters instead one a single one that large. The Harvesters scanning function becomes rather too slow to keep up with such a large area. Specially if you boost your saplings growth with things like Fertilized Dirt(Random Things), Lilypad of Fertility(Xenos), MFR Fertilizer etc.

Understood. But even without all those "extras", my MFR treefarm in Infinity modpack just cranks out the wood. Plain grass blocks, no fertilizer. I was getting somewhere around 100K wood blocks every 24 hours from it which was bordering on the ridiculous.

If power got cut off to the harvester, I would return to find a solid 25x25 area of oak wood ready to be cut down (every last block except for where my glowstone was). That was pretty cool to see, a 25x25 oak tree. LOL

 

[Buffalo_Wings_Master]

If you have Big Reactors you can considder using its Turbine multiblock to transform steam into RF. It is MUCH more efficient than dynamos. This can help you dimension your turbine after the boilers you have:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...TUxOUGxMRlpERWtPMmtGT213bmc&usp=sharing#gid=1

HP vs. LP have kinda changed over the years, so slightly lost track. But I believe the only difference is that HP produces 2x the steam per block, but will take twice as long to heat up.
I can see that you are not using maxed size boilers, yet you are using multiple boilers? Is there a reason? Boilers become more efficient with increasing size, but takes longer to heat up. So you spend a bigger initial fuel cost on heating it up, but once running it costs less.

If all you want is make charcoal, and you dont mind it being slightly OP, you could go to the nether and grab some Ghostwood trees. Plant them on Netherrack on a small'ish MFR farm(it REALLY dont need to be very large, a 5x5 is plenty) and just watch it come in. They grow rather fast and to a rather large size. Good alternative if you do not want to bother with tree breeding.

I considered getting a turbine, and I likely will once I get enough blutonium *whatever those blue ingots are* (not really willing to directly convert yellorium via the yellorium + sand recipe), but my farm itself is sort of struggling to produce enough wood/charcoal to keep the three boilers on 24/7, since as far as I know, there is no ON/OFF switch, and I don't want to have to re-heat the whole thing every time I need power...

 

[rhn]

I considered getting a turbine, and I likely will once I get enough blutonium *whatever those blue ingots are* (not really willing to directly convert yellorium via the yellorium + sand recipe), but my farm itself is sort of struggling to produce enough wood/charcoal to keep the three boilers on 24/7, since as far as I know, there is no ON/OFF switch, and I don't want to have to re-heat the whole thing every time I need power...

No you want to keep boilers running ALL the time. Heating one up(at least the larger HP ones) costs enormous amounts of fuel.

You can do several things to boost the output of your farm. First of make sure as many saplings as possible are lighted to ensure high growth day and night. You could also shift to a more efficient tree. I believe vanilla Spruce might have more logs per tree than oak, while still giving a surplus of saplings(or go Ghostwood). And you can use some of the many growth boosting items that are available. If you dont mind it being totally OP, you can use a Sewer to collect Sewage from animals, then make it into Industrial Fertilizer in the Composter and then have Fertilizer "Bone Meal" the saplings with it for instant growth.

 

[Type1Ninja]

For boiling steam, you can always use MFR's Steam Generator thingy. It's a lot more compact, probably cheaper than, and definitely starts faster than Railcraft boilers.
EDIT: It runs off of conventional fuel like a furnace. Of course, you have a tree farm, so that won't be an issue.

 

[ScottulusMaximus]

4x4 spruce farm with MFR fertilizer/any growth speeding mechanic. Fastest you'll get

 

[Psychicash]

I enjoy using Steve's carts to do the tree farm. not only does it produce a healthy amount of saplings and apple (yeah oak!) but it makes it's own charcoal. I can then pump it out for various other uses. Honestly though I just really really enjoy Steve's carts running around making noise lol. The repair cost though is kind of tedious until you can afford the galgalorian (sp?) stuff.

Honestly though if you stick with MFR as a core mod, then just bite the bullet and get a laser miner with a yellow filter on it and a big reactor for power. Small foot print and self sustaining. Laser mines up yellorium from nothing, it gets pumped into a smelter/furnace of some kind and pumped into an ender chest or barrel with ender upgrade (thanks Jabba). 25k for the laser and excess for base power. A halfway decent setup can easily get you 40k+ and an optimized setup can get you double or triple that I'm sure. That's without even touching the turbines. That's just passively cooled.

Really I haven't done any research on the subject but if I guessed I would have to say that Big Reactors uses less system resources and has less impact on lag than any of the tree farm options... of course that's my assumption

 

[Ieldra]

There are a variety of mods that allow for automated farming, and from one of my previous threads, I found out that a fair number of people rely on tree farms for power (it was the 3rd most popular option).
Currently, my setup involves a 10x10 MFR oak tree farm (using a single planter and harvester), 4 TE furnaces to smelt the logs into charcoal, three 3x3x3 LP boilers (NOT including the base layer of fuelboxes) which feed steam into 18 steam dynamos.

1) I'm looking for feedback on said system, in terms of resource efficiency and power output (SPACE is not a factor for this build) in general, but also:
2) LP boilers VS HP boilers
3) Planting + harvesting method (apart from MFR)
4) Power gen -> setups that are different from mine? ***setups that use tree farms as a power source***
*NOTE: feel free to post pictures of your setups if you wish

Thanks for the feedback!

Generally, if this is your primary source of base load power, you'll want it to run constantly. With that in mind:
(1) HP boilers are more efficient than LP boilers. You can look at the bottom of the Nether for Firestone, which can be refined and used to fire a HP boiler up. If it still works like last year, that is.
(2) Big boilers are more efficient than small boilers. I recommend using one big one instead of three small ones.
(3) There is an adjunct multiblock to the steam boiler - the steam oven I think it's called. It can be used to make charcoal, and with a constant supply of wood it's fast enough to supply a maximum-size HP steam boiler with charcoal after the initial heat-up phase. After the initial heat-up it runs on the steam boiler's own steam.
(4) MFR is still the best mod for tree farming if you go for reliablity since it has no moving parts (like Steve's Carts) and it doesn't need maintenance (like EnderIO's farming station). All three methods are efficient, but the Steve's Cart's woodcutter is a PITA to repair and the Galgadorian stuff is insanely expensive. So a Steve's Carts tree farm nullifies one of the main advantages of a tree farm as a power source: that it's avaialble eary with relatively low expense while still working reliably.
(5) If you want to increase growth, an OpenBlocks sprinkler gives you a good effect for the almost negligible effort to make and run it, even if you don't supply it with bonemeal. Works with any tree farm option. MFR fertilizer can result in absolutely insane growth speeds if your farm gets a constant supply, but its large-scale production requires some additional logistics and possibly even a second farm (making wheat).

 

[Psychicash]

Generally, if this is your primary source of base load power, you'll want it to run constantly. With that in mind:
(1) HP boilers are more efficient than LP boilers. You can look at the bottom of the Nether for Firestone, which can be refined and used to fire a HP boiler up. If it still works like last year, that is.
(2) Big boilers are more efficient than small boilers. I recommend using one big one instead of three small ones.
(3) There is an adjunct multiblock to the steam boiler - the steam oven I think it's called. It can be used to make charcoal, and with a constant supply of wood it's fast enough to supply a maximum-size HP steam boiler with charcoal after the initial heat-up phase. After the initial heat-up it runs on the steam boiler's own steam.
(4) MFR is still the best mod for tree farming if you go for reliablity since it has no moving parts (like Steve's Carts) and it doesn't need maintenance (like EnderIO's farming station). All three methods are efficient, but the Steve's Cart's woodcutter is a PITA to repair and the Galgadorian stuff is insanely expensive. So a Steve's Carts tree farm nullifies one of the main advantages of a tree farm as a power source: that it's avaialble eary with relatively low expense while still working reliably.
(5) If you want to increase growth, an OpenBlocks sprinkler gives you a good effect for the almost negligible effort to make and run it, even if you don't supply it with bonemeal. Works with any tree farm option. MFR fertilizer can result in absolutely insane growth speeds if your farm gets a constant supply, but its large-scale production requires some additional logistics and possibly even a second farm (making wheat).

It's not fair to say that Steve's carts isn't available early on. Iron, gold, redstone and you'll be on your way. Actually I would argue that Steve's Carts tree farm is available earlier than MFR simply because you have to be able to make invar in most of the recipes (ferrous). That being said anything beyond the basic 3x3 requires gems and depending on the pack and recipe can be anything from metals to emeralds. Granted you can make more than 1 harvester and planter but again more raw materials which includes rubber and invar. This also means finding rubber which in some biomes can be very difficult. I'm not saying that Steve's Carts is easy to setup, tracks alone can be a pain. However I am saying that it can be cheaper depending on the size of the farm.


You still have to power the MFR planter and harvester. And you have to have a way to transport items to and from the machines. If you just place a chest behind the harvester it will fill up quickly. If you don't have a way to transport sapplings to the planter you will find yourself hacking through trees manually to get to it from above or construct it with a tunnel to walk the things to it. Now we are looking at various mods to move the stuff.

Enderio - does the job very well but takes an alloy furnace and ender pearls in addition to filters which if you're using the basic takes paper and hoppers

Thermal Dynamics (finally! woot) - which requires lead and then an upgrade for the servo on the pipe. Then you're sorting through different chests just to get the sapplings back to the planter. It takes up more space because the power and items can't occupy the same space (or did they change that?)

Buildcraft pipes - great mod and good at sorting. In fact if I don't have ender pearls I use this for steve's carts. Pumping back to the harvester brings the same issue though of sorting and handling overflow from the planter

AE conduit - granted great setup but honestly not easily setup and very material heavy and not early game at all.

Factorization - LOL (it can do it, the LOL is because F if I know how)

Computercraft - Very easy to craft turtles, hard to program and I don't know of a program that will easily move items that you want to the way you would need to...

I can't think of other methods of moving things off the top of my head.

Now after you do all of that you have to turn it into charcoal which means additional machines. So now you're setting up vanilla furnaces with chests and hoppers (which is also fun but not compact), ender io alloy furnaces, redstone furnaces, ic2 furnaces, etc and make sure you make enough to keep up with the size farm you have.. and you must have enough or large enough farms to keep up with the steam boilers...

All of this is contained in one Steve's Cart.

All of that being said I do use MFR lol for some things

See what happens when I'm bored at work...

 

[Inaeo]

For boiling steam, you can always use MFR's Steam Generator thingy. It's a lot more compact, probably cheaper than, and definitely starts faster than Railcraft boilers.
EDIT: It runs off of conventional fuel like a furnace. Of course, you have a tree farm, so that won't be an issue.

MFR Steam Boilers are much more fuel/steam efficient than RC Boilers, and take FAR less time to heat up to a usable level of heat. Also note that 7 of them are enough to feed a BR turbine (max size), although the bottleneck then becomes moving the water/steam fast enough (as most pipes won't have the throughput).

 

[Type1Ninja]

MFR Steam Boilers are much more fuel/steam efficient than RC Boilers, and take FAR less time to heat up to a usable level of heat. Also note that 7 of them are enough to feed a BR turbine (max size), although the bottleneck then becomes moving the water/steam fast enough (as most pipes won't have the throughput).

... That's why you use MOAR PIPES. XD
Or tesseracts.
Plus you can create a negative feedback loop with the turbine itself.

 

[Inaeo]

... That's why you use MOAR PIPES. XD
Or tesseracts.
Plus you can create a negative feedback loop with the turbine itself.

As much as they didn't fit with the rest of the build, XU Liquid Transfer Nodes were the answer.

 

[Type1Ninja]

As much as they didn't fit with the rest of the build, XU Liquid Transfer Nodes were the answer.

Yeah... Of course, I find XU in general OP and not something I want to play with currently, so I'll have to get creative and/or automate creation of aqueous accumulators and tesseracts.

 

[Inaeo]

Its not that I see them as OP, I'm just less familiar with them than EIO/TE. I was using one ender tank per boiler, but I hated the eyesore enough to be motivated to find a better solution.

Its worth noting that a MFR boiler makes more steam than it uses water. This makes a closed cycle on the BR turbine inefficient, as it backlogs the turbine with water. Set to void overflow, it works wonderfully.

As a testament to efficiency, I am powering two max size BR turbines with 14 MFR boilers (7 each), one TE Fluid Transposer, and a MFR Lava Fabricator. At 28krf/t each, they suit my needs without any additional input. I used an abundance of blaze rods to get the boilers up to temp, then once the turbines were generating power, I swapped over to a closed circuit of 58 buckets (4 per boiler, one full and one empty in Transposer).

 

[Type1Ninja]

Its not that I see them as OP, I'm just less familiar with them than EIO/TE. I was using one ender tank per boiler, but I hated the eyesore enough to be motivated to find a better solution.

Its worth noting that a MFR boiler makes more steam than it uses water. This makes a closed cycle on the BR turbine inefficient, as it backlogs the turbine with water. Set to void overflow, it works wonderfully.

As a testament to efficiency, I am powering two max size BR turbines with 14 MFR boilers (7 each), one TE Fluid Transposer, and a MFR Lava Fabricator. At 28krf/t each, they suit my needs without any additional input. I used an abundance of blaze rods to get the boilers up to temp, then once the turbines were generating power, I swapped over to a closed circuit of 58 buckets (4 per boiler, one full and one empty in Transposer).

Awesome. Are you saying the MFR Steam Boilers will remain hot after a certain amount of fuel is supplied?
About XU, I meant that I found it OP. I'm wondering if there's a way to get buttloads of water into a Big Reactor without using EIO or XU.

 

[immibis]

Computercraft - Very easy to craft turtles, hard to program and I don't know of a program that will easily move items that you want to the way you would need to...

while true do
  turtle.select(1)
  turtle.suckUp()
  turtle.down()
  for k=1,5 do turtle.forward() end
  turtle.drop()
  for k=1,5 do turtle.back() end

  -- drop excess saplings below the planter
  for k=1,16 do turtle.select(k) turtle.dropDown() end

  turtle.up()
  os.sleep(20)
end

Make sure to enclose it in a small tunnel so it can't go anywhere it isn't meant to (in case the server restarts while the program is running)

 

[Inaeo]

Awesome. Are you saying the MFR Steam Boilers will remain hot after a certain amount of fuel is supplied?
About XU, I meant that I found it OP. I'm wondering if there's a way to get buttloads of water into a Big Reactor without using EIO or XU.

Its not going to stay heated without fuel, but that's where the lava fabricator and the fluid transposer come in. Empty buckets are pumped into the fluid transposer (being fed from the lava fabricator), filled with lava, and pumped back to the boilers to be used for fuel. Due to the efficiency of both the boilers making steam and the turbine using it to generate power, the RF output vastly outweighs the upkeep needed to power the fabricator and transposer combo.

I have both turbines 7 boilers each) being fed from a single fabricator and transposer. I'm curious if I can get another turbine out of it before I have to add more infrastructure. Not thinking so, but its worth a try.